Tag Archives: influenza pandemic

How do you know if a surface has been properly cleaned?

Quality control in surface disinfection has always been a challenge. Jim Mann, a Brevis associate, sent us a nifty device to check for surface cleaning. It is called MarX and Brevis is now marketing it as the GlitterBug MarX.This is a stamp device that leaves an invisible circle X mark on stamped surfaces that can be visualized with UV light. It will be simple for quality control personnel to check whether surfaces have been cleaned by shining a UV source, such as the very popular GlitterBug GlowBar LED, on stamped surfaces. In this SARS-CoV-2 pandemic world, knowing that surfaces have been cleaned is more important than ever. And will be in the future when the next pandemic after Covid 19 rears its ugly head, as surely it will.

For decades Brevis has been a world leader in the teaching of hand hygiene with its GlitterBug UV product line and instructional videos. The GlitterBug MarX product is a great addition to this popular family. The MarX device is very portable – and pocketable – at about 1.0 by 2.5 inches (2.5 x 6.3 cm). It is probably capable of at least a thousand stampings if kept covered between uses.

Surface cleaning detection kit with invisible stamper and UVA lamp

Surface cleaning matters even more than ever. Use the MarX to mark surfaces with an invisible mark then use the SpotShooter8 Lamp to see if those marks were properly cleaned off. Easy method to Trust but Verify.

If only the Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo) had known about this, vaudeville may have taken a different turn back in the early 1900s. There is a story, which I can’t verify, that explains why Harpo never talks. Seems that the brothers were on tour and in one particular town, their act was not well received. So as they were walking out of town to get to the train station, Harpo turned around and said something like, “I hope your town burns down.” The next day when they looked at the newspaper, what do they see but an item about how that town had been mostly destroyed by a large fire. Of course, they had nothing to do with starting the fire, but Harpo’s curse was so prescient that the other brothers prevailed on Harpo not to talk any more. And he never did in their acts including when they got into movies. The story may be apocryphal but I like it anyway. If it didn’t happen, it should have.

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Meanwhile, GlitterBug MarX has happened and is available now for your consideration and use. Check it out. You will be impressed with its simplicity and effectiveness.

Thank you,

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation

What’s Nu with Flu?

I previously wrote about influenza at the end of 1918. But I couldn’t resist adding a bit more to the story based on the December, 2018 book “Influenza” by Jeremy Brown, MD.

So what’s “nu”? Brown tells the well-known story of 1918, the search for the original virus, etc., but then adds to the melodrama. For example, the truth about Tamiflu. Therein hangs a tale. Seems that Tamiflu (or oseltamivir if you prefer generic names) is only marginally effective. Supposedly it can shorten the symptomatic period by only a day and only if it is taken within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms. OK, well something is better than nothing I suppose.

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But the story doesn’t end there. Seems that governments around the world, including the US government, bought into the Hoffman-LaRoche inspired hype that Tamiflu was the best hope the world has to abort any impending influenza pandemic. With that in mind, the Strategic National Stockpile of emergency medicine, maintained by the CDC, added millions of doses of Tamiflu to its warehouses.

But the Cochrane Collaborative, an independent scientific critic, as quoted by Jeremy Brown said that Tamiflu was marginally effective in treating influenza and a little more effective in preventing it, but came with its own list of side effects that could imitate the symptoms of flu itself.

So, what to do? Hand hygiene, barrier protection, avoiding sick people if possible, and, of course, vaccination. Vaccination is only about 50% effective in prevention but may possibly lower the severity of an infection. I get my flu shot every year and don’t forget to cross my fingers. So far, so good.

Keep smiling!

Gordon Short, MD
Brevis Corporation

Parris Island

I was born in lower Manhattan (just a few blocks from where the World Trade Center would later be built) in October of 1931. My earliest memories are of growing up in Forest Hills, an upper middle class, pleasant neighborhood on Long Island. Life was simple, enjoyable, worry-free.

My father was an internist with an office on Park Avenue. He had deep patriotic instincts and was inspired to join the Naval Medical Reserve about the time I was born and was commissioned a Lieutenant Commander. Life took a dramatic change on December 7, 1941. In what seemed like a matter of minutes, Dad received orders to report for active duty early January in the Marine boot training camp on Parris Island, SC. Within days he had to get his new uniform from Brooks Brothers, arrange for another doctor to take over his practice, get ready for Christmas for my sibs and me, and get himself out the door and down Highway 17 to South Carolina. Meanwhile Mother had to pack all her dishes, etc. in barrels in the basement, rent the house and get ready to move my sister and brother and me to follow at the semester break the end of January.

What I remember most that a friend drove us to Pennsylvania Station on a miserable evening with freezing rain to give us a cold send-off. My mother and sister slept on the lower bed of a pullman car while my younger brother and I slept on the upper bunk. But in the morning when I looked out the window, we were in Virginia and the sun was shining. Wow! That afternoon the train arrived at the whistle-stop town of Yemassee, SC where Dad was there to meet us in his trusty 1941 black Dodge sedan. He drove us to our new home on the island. It was a single story affair with a screened porch on two sides where I slept in the warmer weather and listened to the buglers around the island play a nameless tune at 9:00 PM and taps at 10:00.

Although I was only 10, I remember how impressed Dad was when he came home and reported that there was a case of spinal meningitis in a recruit. At that time it was not only highly contagious but essentially untreatable and with a very high mortality rate. No antibiotics then. But there was sulfadiazine and this was given prophylactically to everyone(?). Anyway, Dad was mightily impressed with that seeming miracle of stopping a threatened epidemic in its tracks. I’m sure he well remembered the influenza pandemic beginning in September, 1918 that exploded in a similar military camp in Camp Funston, KS, since he graduated from medical school about the same time.

My mother, who was raised in New York City, used to tell about meeting a friend who would say something like, “Did you hear that Bill died last Tuesday.” And Mother would say, “How could that be? I just saw him a week ago and he looked fine.” It is hard for me to imagine what it was like to live when the possibility of a random strike of lightning could hit you with a rapidly fatal illness like influenza. We can be happy that we live in an age where that does not happen in this country while continuing to remind ourselves that the possibility of a new pandemic hangs over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. Carpe diem! Make every day count.

Cheers!


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Image by USMC Archives, Platoon 903, Parris Island, 1942